Emberverse Fiction: The Middle Lands
by Captain Kurt Hoffman
Summary: Follows the various people of Midwest America during the events of S. M. Stirling's book "Dies the Fire," and onward. Rated for the violence, gore, and just to be safe.


**Installment One: Battle on the Hill**

**Notes:** I do not own "Dies the Fire," or anything created by Mr. Stirling. You know how it is. Original characters and such are mine.

**Wednesday, March 21st, 1998**  
**6:00 A.M.**  
**Change Day 4**

**Nearby the City of Dornesse, Iowa**

From his vantage point atop the low hill, James Steward could see the raider's camp fires, half a dozen still lit, out of the two dozen originally there. That was a good sign, signaling him that most of his prey was sleeping, not expecting an attack. That was fine by him and his party. The more absolute the shock, the more effective the attackers would be. He had long studied military history and believed very strongly in a phrase once uttered by a man he believed was one of history's few genuine military geniuses, Napoleon Bonaparte.

"Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake," he muttered quietly. He raised his hand to his face and wiped away caked sweat and mud.

"You say something, Steward?" The whispered question caused James to turn his head to look at the speaker. Isaac Kleinerman, until just days ago a quarterback at Dornesse High, lay in a low crouch just a few feet down the hill behind him.

"I was just making an observation, Isaac," he replied quietly. "You can come up, if you'd like. These bastards are all drunk, or sleeping. Only stay low."

Nodding silently, the nineteen year-old rose slightly with a smoothness one only expected in people much smaller, covering the distance between him and Steward in total silence, a long-handled axe held lightly in one hand as he moved. He settled next to Steward quietly in the prone position and looked down at the camp below.

"How many, do you figure?" he whispered.

"Maybe thirty," was the reply. "They're not very organized, so we can't really count fires here, but I'd say thirty, based on how many hit the school yesterday."

Kleinerman grimaced at that, and Steward joined him. When all the technological devices had stopped working three days ago, it had taken a disturbingly short time for break down in society to begin, and from there, everything had gone to Hell.

Dornesse Junior/Senior High School had been targeted by a raid yesterday around noon, a lot of men carrying improvised weapons rushing in unexpectedly. Several had been killed in the raid, and ten female students were hauled away as captives. Angry as they all got, it looked unlikely they could do very much.

Until, that is, one James Steward came along. A fairly quiet but intelligent student, James had a reputation as an aficionado of all things military, and of history in general. When he learned the faculty was not going to do anything to help the captured girls he got so angry he had to be physically restrained from attacking the principal, George Cole, accusing the man of being a gutless coward, shouting loudly that he wasn't going to do anything about it because he was too afraid. Cole had retaliated near as angrily, furiously asking Steward if he had any better ideas. "What are we supposed to do?" he had inquired. Steward made his position plain with two words. "Fight back." It had all snowballed then, even when an irritated Principal Cole had issued directions forbidding any rescue mission. He insisted it had no chance at success and they had to stay focused on what they had left. He could not keep the situation in control, however, and people, mostly students, began volunteering to help in the rescue effort and making preparations to move.

Isaac Kleinerman was the first volunteer, followed by Steward's friend Henry Mills and a lot of others. Steward didn't want to take everybody, knowing that the school also needed its own defenders, so he carefully selected thirty five. They armed themselves with things like kitchen knives strapped on to broom handles and old fire axes. For armor they wore a hodgepodge of sweaters and heavy coats. It was not exactly King Arthur's Knights, but at least the bandits had been equally as ragged.

"You ready to hit 'em?" whispered Kleinerman; Steward, jerked suddenly back to reality, looked at him and blinked in confusion.

"What?" he asked. Kleinerman rolled his eyes.

"I asked you, should we hit them? It's almost morning, man."

"It already is morning, technically," Steward whispered back. "Yeah, let's hit them. Let's head back to the group and make sure everybody else's ready."

Kleinerman nodded, and began slowly crawling back down the hill. Following a glance at his target, Steward followed him down to where his fellows were awaiting his arrival, and his command to begin the attack. Boys and girls who had once sat with him in classrooms now stared at him in the pre-dawn blackness on the eve of a perhaps suicidal mission, and hoped against hope they would live to see the Sun rise again.

"Alright," Steward whispered, just loud enough to be heard by his followers. "Everybody knows why we are here so let's make this quick. Isaac, you lead your group around to the left side of the hill. Henry, you take yours out to the right. I'll take mine on to the hill and hit them from above when the time comes. Do we still have the stopwatches?"

His question was answered by three nodding heads as Henry Mills, Isaac Kleinerman and his twelve-person group's second in command Sarah Carson pulled out three stopwatches loaned to them by the P.E. teacher, Mr. Harold. They were old, windup types, mechanical in nature without any electronic pieces, and had been found to still be useable.

"Good," he said. "Wind them to five minutes, and start them on my orders. You have that long to get yourselves in to positions. When these wind down, we hit them."

From there, all three groups split up and went to the places assigned to them. Steward and his group slowly crawled up the hill. Once there they waited, Steward clutching the watch in one hand, and a knife-ended broom handle in the other, silently watching the time.

Finally, the Moment of Truth arrived. His watch ran down.

"Hit them!" he bellowed, at the same time standing up and starting down the hill. When a loud, incoherent scream rose up from behind him he joined in, and before long everybody in his twelve-strong group was shrieking like ghouls. He heard shrieks and screams rising in to the pre-dawn blackness as the groups led by Isaac and Henry swarmed out, attacking in to the enemy camps flanks. A few of the bandits were stirred by the noise, and fumbled in the darkness as they ran out from tents or jumped up from bedrolls, scrambling dazedly in the darkness for weapons and clothing. Some of the girls the bandits had captured were induced to waken by the loud and sudden noise as well, and Steward heard screaming and loud commotion coming from in the tents.

He tried to ignore the noises and concentrate on the task at hand. Lifting his weapon up as he ran, he spotted a large, shaven-headed black man stumble out of a tent trying to pull an incredibly ratty pair of overalls on. Even in the low light Steward recognized him. He had done most of the killing in the raid. He would make an excellent first target, Steward decided.

"Die!" he shouted, raising his weapon and thrusting it at the man's chest. It landed square in the stomach, not quite on target, but close enough. The man screamed in pain, and then limply fell to the ground, clutching his belly. Steward tried to pull back his spear, but was left holding a blunt stick as the blade stayed inside the man's guts.

"Look out, Steward!" The shout from Kleinerman came just in time, and he ducked down low to avoid a knife one of the raiders had thrown at him. It whizzed by overhead landing in the darkness somewhere. He stood back up and quickly wished he hadn't, as he felt the icy hot sting of a second knife as it pierced his coat sleeve. Falling to his knees he yanked it from his arm with one hand, blindly lobbing it back at the bandit. To his amazement the knife flew true, landing in the man's neck and killing him instantly.

Henry Mills was locked in mortal combat with a short, skinny blond man who wielded an incredibly long and wicked looking knife, which he held in a professional's skilled hands, lashing out occasionally as he and the ex-student took each other's measure. Henry struck hard with the axe, but the man danced back quickly and dodged the strike, leaped forward in to his own attack, was deflected, and skittered backward again. This time, however, the man tripped on something and fell back. Henry took the chance and struck, the sound that his axe made as it crushed the man's skull echoing loud. His victory was short however, a hatchet thrown at him thudding in to his neck. He dropped silent to the ground.

"Henry!" Kleinerman bellowed with rage and charged the offending bandit, catching him in the jaw with his axe. As he finished the man off, Steward sprinted to where Henry was laying and grabbed the axe he had dropped. He stood up and rejoined the fight.

From there, it was all fairly straightforward. A few students were lost, but in the end, they had won, those bandits not killed having fled. The survivors looked frantically for the girls lost in the raid but found only six of them. They tried to locate the remaining girls, but the heavy fighting had exhausted them all and it was dangerously dark. Before long, the little group decided they weren't going to find the others. Gathering up the wounded, they looted the camp for supplies, and along with their newly-rescued fellow students, began a long walk back to the school.


End file.
